On the syntax of derived nominals in English and Greek.

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Abstract

This study exammes different approaches to analysing the syntactic derivation of nouns from
verbs within the theoretical framework of Principles and Parameters (PP phrases by presenting a
contrastive study of English and Greek derived nominal expressions. The thesis discusses the
well-known distinction between result nominals and process nominals, and it demonstrates that,
in contrast to result nominals, process nominals license argument structure obligatorily and
can be modified by aspectual adverbials. It is shown that the role of functional categories is
crucial for an explanation of the differences between these two noun classes of derived
nominals. In particular, it is suggested, following a proposal by Alexiadou (2001), that the
verbal functional categories vP and AspectP are projected with process nominals, but not with
result nominals. This analysis also accounts for the derivation of Greek nouns from
ergative/unaccusative verbs, but it also explains the projection of the patient/theme as the
internal argument of a result nominal and the aspectual modification of passive nominals.